Openreach and FTTP broadband availability in general

In Q4 2024, Point Topic recorded 941K additions to the full fibre premises passed by Openreach, up from 869K recorded in Q3 2024. The total Openreach FTTP footprint stood at 16.1 million premises, up 6.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter. Openreach full fibre now covers 48.9 per cent of all UK premises, up from 46 per cent in Q3 2024.

The decline in the number of Openreach ADSL, FTTC and Gfast only premises continued – their number went down by 940K, only slightly lower than the FTTP additions. Once again, the largest decline (-805K premises) was in FTTC only coverage. Non-fibre platforms still covered 16.3 million premises in the UK, though this number has decreased by 5.4 per cent quarter on quarter, and it was only slightly higher than that of FTTP premises. Point Topic expects the scales to tip in favour of full fibre in early 2025.

Year-on-year, Openreach FTTP premises increased by 4.1 million (+34.6 per cent), showing an acceleration in the build. Between 2022 and 2023, their footprint grew by 3.3 million premises, and between 2021 and 2022 it went up by 2.9 million. If the trend continues, Openreach should achieve their ambition of 25 million FTTP premises passed by the end of 2026.

In terms of the proportion of total LA (local authority) premises passed by Openreach FTTP, it has particularly extensive FTTP coverage in regions and locations outside London and the South East. Similarly to the past few quarters, among the top 20 LAs by this measure, nine are in Northern Ireland. Belfast remains the leading local authority in terms of the availability of Openreach fibre, with 96 per cent of its premises passed. Cannock Chase is the new entrant to the top 20 ranking in Q4 2024, with 87 per cent of premises in this LA passed by Openreach fibre (up from 78.9 per cent in Q3 2024).

During Q4 2024, Openreach added most FTTP premises in Bradford (+16K). Wolverhampton and Kirklees saw +15.5K and +14K new Openreach fibre premises respectively. While the top ten LAs by new FTTP premises covered were located predominantly in the northern and central parts of the UK, Point Topic saw two London LAs (Barnet and Harrow) and one Southeast LA (Medway) in the top ten league.

At the end of 2024, the overall FTTP coverage, including Openreach FTTP network, altnets, Virgin Media O2’s RFOG network and KCOM was just under 24 million premises (72.9 per cent of the UK total, compared to 60.9 per cent at the end of 2023). The number of FTTP premises was up 23.2 per cent y-o-y, with the growth continuing thanks to Openreach and the altnets, especially the likes of nexfibre, CityFibre and Netomnia (including brsk) with their sizeable footprints.

Fibre network overbuild has intensified in 2024. At the end of the year, nearly 9.1 million premises had access to 2 or more FTTP networks (27.5 per cent of all UK premises, up from 17.7 per cent at end-2023). Just over 1.3 million premises were covered by 3+ fibre networks, with this number more than doubling in 12 months.

The continuing FTTP deployment by multiple operators also had an impact on our ‘list of shame’ which shows the bottom ten UK local authorities (LAs) by FTTP coverage. Once again, the list in Q4 2024 features higher percentages – 6.1 per cent to 29.8 per cent, compared to 6 per cent to 26.7 per cent in the previous quarter, as FTTP networks cover more premises across the country. In Q4 2024, Eastleigh added 9K FTTP premises and got pushed out of the bottom ten by Warwick, which added only 1K.

Eight out of the top ten best covered FTTP areas are Northern Ireland LAs, largely as a result of Openreach’s prominent FTTP presence in the country as well as the likes of Fibrus and nexfibre. UK-wide, the top ‘fibre rich’ local authority remains Kingston upon Hull (99.3 per cent FTTP coverage), largely due to fibre rollout by KCOM and MS3. Coventry also made the top ten, with 94.7 per cent of its premises covered by FTTP.

It should be noted that these figures do not include Virgin Media O2’s Docsis 3.1 network coverage, which is widely available in some of the LAs. For the combined coverage data see our granular dataset.

Among the LAs, the largest number of FTTP premises added was in Birmingham (+26K), Stoke-on-Trent (+23K), and Southampton (+21K). The top ten ranking is quite diverse in terms of regions, though northern and central areas of the UK still dominate. Six out of ten LAs in the league table are new entrants, compared to Q3 2024. Only Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Wigan and Sandwell retained their top positions by FTTP premises added. Quarter-on-quarter, St Helens saw a significant increase, jumping from 69.4 per cent to 80.6 per cent of premises passed with full fibre. In Southampton the change was even more notable – from 66.1 per cent to 83.9 per cent.

As some operators are slowing down their footprint expansion and focusing on encouraging service take-up, in Q4 2024 only 45 local authorities saw 10 per cent or higher quarterly growth in the number of their premises passed with FTTP. A year ago, 122 LAs saw this extent of growth. Overall, even though the magnitude of growth in Q4 2024 is quite a bit smaller than 12 months ago, not least due to the emerging overbuild, the relatively high growth areas are distributed more evenly across the UK.

In Q4 2024, Charnwood, Eastleigh, and Telford and Wrekin saw the highest growth in the number of their premises passed with FTTP (53.8 per cent, 53.3 per cent and 51.8 per cent respectively).

At the end of Q4 2024, FTTP coverage was lower than 20 per cent of premises in 7 local authorities, down from 8 three months earlier. The FTTP coverage was 50 per cent or higher in 89.5 per cent of local authorities, up from 83.7 per cent of LAs three months earlier.

VMO2 and Nexfibre

In addition to Openreach and altnets, Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is carrying full fibre network rollout, mainly via their nexfibre venture. In early 2025, nexfibre announced that it had passed 2 million premises with FTTP, having added 1 million premises in a year. It is a significant step towards its aim to cover 5 million homes by end-2026.

At end-2024, VMO2’s own RFOG/FTTP premises stood at 1.7 million, up 12.1 per cent year-on-year.

Fibre Altnets

As an increasing number of altnets are exceeding 100K fibre premises passed, Point Topic is now focusing on this lower limit. At the end of Q4 2024, CityFibre was at the top of the league with 3.75 million FTTP premises covered by their network (Ready for Service premises). Vodafone, TalkTalk and Zen remained the largest retail providers using CityFibre’s network, with well over 3 million each. This could change, once Sky start selling FTTP over CityFibre’s network, following the recent announcement of their partnership.

Already mentioned was nexfibre, who confirmed 2 million premises passed at end-2024. Looking at other major footprints, Community Fibre passed 1.4 million premises, Netomnia 1.3 million, Hyperoptic 1.1 million, and brsk 0.7 million. Netomnia is nearing integration with brsk, following their recent merger. Their ambition to increase this to 3 million by the end of 2025 will create a strong challenger to nexfibre.

In Q4 2024, Point Topic recorded the largest quarterly increase in FTTP premises passed for toob (+68.7 per cent). The operator’s network was also among the fastest growing year-on-year (+162.7 per cent) (in the category of altnets with 100K+ premises passed).

Overbuild by FTTP altnets has increased further, as multiple network operators are increasingly competing for the same customers. This will put further pressure on take-up rates, profit margins and lead to further consolidation in the market.

At the end of 2024, 93 local authorities had three overlapping fibre altnets, up from 55 twelve months ago. South Holland in East Midlands and Staffordshire Moorlands in West Midlands were top of the league by new premises served by three altnets, with +5K and +4K respectively. Five out of the top ten LAs in this category were in East Midlands, West Midlands, and the East of England, suggesting the overbuild is becoming more common in central and eastern parts of the UK. However, among all the 93 LAs with three fibre altnets present, more than one third (36) were still in London or the South East.

In Q4 2024, two fibre altnets overlapped in 291 local authorities, up from 225 in Q4 2023.

Nationwide 1.9 million premises could choose between two or more fibre altnets, compared to 1.1 million at end-2023. Just over 150K premises were served by 3+ alternative fibre networks, up from 76K a year earlier.

Point Topic says we should see overbuild slowing down in the future as consolidation in the FTTP market continues. In January 2025, Zzoomm and Full Fibre announced that they had agreed to merge their networks which overlap only by 2K premises.

Gigabit Coverage

At the end of 2024, 15.4 per cent of UK premises did not have access to gigabit capable broadband (either a Docsis3.1 network or an FTTP network), down from 21.7 per cent at the end of 2023. So, the Project Gigabit target of 85 per cent gigabit coverage in the UK by 2025 has been achieved. Looking at individual nations, however, Scotland and Wales still have a way to go, with 21.7 per cent and 23.3 per cent of their premises respectively lacking gigabit access. The latter will benefit from the latest Project Gigabit fund allocation announcement with the contracts worth £289 million.

In addition, these two nations saw the largest improvement in this area y-o-y: between 2023 and 2024, the proportion of premises with no gigabit coverage went down from 33.4 per cent to 23.3 per cent in Wales and from 28.7 per cent to 21.7 per cent in Scotland. England saw a 6.1 per cent improvement (from 20.8 per cent to 14.7 per cent). In Northern Ireland, where only 3.5 per cent of premises did not have gigabit coverage at end-2024, this measure improved by 1.9 per cent during the year.

Local authorities in remote and rural areas still lack access to gigabit broadband, with Na h-Eileanan Siar topping the list by the percentage of premises not passed by gigabit capable networks (93.6 per cent). City of London is also in the top ten LAs in terms of gigabit access with 61 per cent of premises lacking it as of end-2024.

This quarter Point Topic recorded the largest improvement in Rossendale, where the number of premises without gigabit access dropped by 61 per cent (5K), compared to Q3 2024. In the top ten ranking by this measure, seven LAs were in East Midlands or East of England.